Meet Kían
Hello! Could you introduce yourself Hello! I'm Kian, 27 years old and I live in the cheese capital of the world, Gouda! I joined the team mid 2020 right after graduating from the HKU in Utrecht here in the Netherlands. Besides working on and playing video games, I love everything about music and my band "PANSHIR" (shameless plug), which mixes a few of my interests namely middle-eastern art and music. It's all I focus on in my spare time. Been playing the drums all my life and recently also picked up the piano to maybe also do some songwriting myself! What is your role in BlackMill Games and for the games? I'm an environment artist/level artist or mapper as we call it. It's a pretty broad role involving everything to do with the maps. But mostly we work on researching and gathering photos of the chosen location, designing the gameplay layout in the maps, blocking that out and then detailing them, while making sure all the gameplay systems are correctly implemented and run without issues. My role in the team is a little broader than that though, as I also worked quite a lot on creating a few of the trailers and flyover videos for Isonzo. For example, the Caporetto expansion trailer for which I recorded all the footage, animated explosions and bots, and composition of the shots. [previewyoutube=s2V38TymG34;full][/previewyoutube] Next to that I also made all the animated bridge, cave explosion events there are in the game, worked a little on improving some of the particle effects and created cloud shadow cookies for the maps. So a little bit of animation and FX work here and there as well! Where did your passion come from? I've always been quite creative as a kid. But the Far Cry 2 map editor is where my passion for creating environments really started. I was just blown away by how easily I could create a level. I remember being super excited and telling my dad to come look at how I had made a river in a savannah area and was now driving through it with a boat! You also had the map browser which you could use to play published maps from other players. Eventually I found a series of levels called "escape". In these levels players made the player parkour/platform through maps, and created puzzles that utilised glitches to solve along the way to the finish line. Like clipping through walls by dismounting HMGs that were close to walls. Even though the game only had gamemodes like TDM or free for all, they had built their own unofficial mode sortoff. You ’d go into FFA and then play the level. In later Far Cry's this mode would actually be an official one called extraction. I took this idea and started making escape levels for my friends! Difficult puzzle and platform maps heavily inspired by Tomb Raider. And they would try to complete them. And after they did, I would then create a new even more difficult level for them! A friend of mine started doing the same thing and I would play his maps. I think that's where it all started for me. Those are some very fond memories of mine. I continued doing this all the way till Far Cry 4. All the maps are still online on PS3, PS4 and PC. Funny how this actually became my job eventually.
What was the first thing you made in Isonzo?
Caporetto's attacker spawn sector and village sector were the first things I worked on. Set dressing, mostly to get to know the workflow. It changed a lot after that though.
After that, the first real big thing I worked on was the Fior map , which I did research on, designed, blocked out and then dressed up completely. Placed all objects, particles etc.
Fun fact: all the trees and grass patches were placed completely by hand one by one mostly! A lot of hours building that map.
What is a memorable moment in the development of Isonzo?
In one of the meetings early on, I remember Frank showing some of the new assets and tech we were gonna use for Isonzo. The visual upgrade was pretty big!
Seeing it change from Tannenberg like visuals into the Isonzo visuals was very promising, that was very exciting to me.
The release was very exciting too. And ofcourse the first time seeing the map I designed be played by big streamers online was like a dream come true!
Recently Marmolada was released which I'm very proud to have worked on. Seeing people like it so much was such a great moment. All the hard work finally paid off after nearly 8 months.
Can you show off some of your work process and tell us what you’re doing?
Yeah! So the process of creating a level is a lengthy one. It can take months to create. There are many steps before a map is finished.
We start with design meetings and doing research on the chosen offensive. Photo references and design sketches. In this time we work on an initial version of the map. The blockout then gets playtested by the team and iterated upon until we are happy.
Then the dressing phase starts. Detailing the entire map, making sure everything is working as well like the HMG’s or wire cutting points. Most of my time is spent here, sculpting and painting Unity terrain, and placing assets. Here are a few before and after shots, from the blockout to the dressed version!
Though you could say the main thing we’re doing is composition.
Whether it be trailer shots, matching set pieces with photos or creating nice looking set dressed areas. Each one of them has lots of elements that need to come together in just the right composition to make the best possible version of it. Story, realism, gameplay, the general fun factor and making a nice looking picture too.
Also everything that I place down in the level is for a reason. Placing a tree or crate somewhere will have an impact on the gameplay and the visuals.It has to look nice, but also work in gameplay. So it's important to consider everything I place, that it is for a reason.
Even if it’s obvious, I want to mention that the levels in the game are never completely done by 1 person. Some of the levels I detailed/dressed were designed by other level designers. Shoutout to Robin Nielsen! Who unfortunately left the team. But for example he designed and blocked out Cengio, I then took over and detailed the map front to back. Then Frank came in and modelled the Fort. I then detailed the interiors with crates, chairs, trees, grass, particles. etc,.
Which other game dev/studio inspires you?
Ubisoft inspires me. Especially old Ubi around early 2000 - 2012. Back then they took risks in game design and settings. They created so many unique games back then which turned into my favourites of all time.
It seemed like they weren't afraid of scaring players off. And the themes used in those games were taken to the next level.
They had next level atmosphere in games like Prince of Persia SOT, WW, and ofcourse Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Don't forget mechanics like malaria in Far Cry 2.
Also the way they combine history and different time periods into their games has always been amazing to me and has inspired, and continues to inspire, me in my art and music to this day.
Favorite game atm?
I've been playing Lethal Company with friends lately!
I like the tension you can get in the game with the different monsters and generated dungeons. You never know exactly what to expect! And I like not knowing if your team is still alive if you are using voip. Your entire run is on the line, so you really care about surviving. I wish more horror games had some of these elements incorporated. Mystery and actual risk. Very fun game.
My all time favorite game is probably Red Dead Redemption or Prince Of Persia or Splinter cell CT or Battlefront 2. And some others, I can't really choose :)
Anything else you wanna share?
In case you want to see a bit more of the level design process, there was a previous dev blog where I showed how we designed a part of the Ice CIty on our map Marmolada! Check it out!
[previewyoutube=9Y1Is925m4c;full][/previewyoutube]
Festive jingles at the Western Front
That’s it for our latest devblog! The dev team will go soon on their Christmas break but don’t worry, our annual Christmas Truce will take place in Verdun! Keep an eye out for our announcements for when it goes live! Maybe make a list already to whom you want to send a postcard too ;)
If you want to join your first Christmas Truce but don’t own Verdun yet? You can now get the game with a 80% discount!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/242860/Verdun/
